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Edge 310—January 10, 2009
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The Edge Annual Question — 2010 HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK? Read any newspaper or magazine and you will notice the many flavors of the one big question that everyone is asking today. Or you can just stay on the page and read recent editions of Edge ...
What do you think? This year's Question is "How is the Internet changing the way YOU think?" Not "How is the Internet changing the way WE think?" We spent a lot of time going back on forth on "YOU" vs. "WE" and came to the conclusion to go with "YOU", the reason being that Edge is a conversation. "WE" responses tend to come across like expert papers, public pronouncements, or talks delivered from stage. We wanted people to think about the "Internet", which includes, but is a much bigger subject than the Web, an application on the Internet, or search, browsing, etc., which are apps on the Web. Back in 1996, computer scientist and visionary Danny Hillis pointed out that when it comes to the Internet, "Many people sense this, but don't want to think about it because the change is too profound. Today, on the Internet the main event is the Web. A lot of people think that the Web is the Internet, and they're missing something. The Internet is a brand-new fertile ground where things can grow, and the Web is the first thing that grew there. But the stuff growing there is in a very primitive form. The Web is the old media incorporated into the new medium. It both adds something to the Internet and takes something away." This year, I enlisted the aid of Hans Ulrich Obrist, Curator of the Serpentine Gallery in London, as well as the artist April Gornik, one of the early members of "The Reality Club" (the precursor to the online Edge) to help broaden the Edge conversation — or rather to bring it back to where it was in the late 80s/early 90s, when April gave a talk at a "Reality Club" meeting, and discussed the influence of chaos theory on her work, and when Benoit Mandelbrot showed up to discuss fractal theory and every artist in NYC wanted to be there. What then happened was very interesting. The Reality Club went online as Edge in 1996 and the scientists were all on email, the artists not. Thus, did Edge surprisingly become a science site when my own background (beginning in 1965 when Jonas Mekas hired me to manage the Film-Makers' Cinematheque) was in the visual and performance arts. To date, 167 essayists (an array of world-class scientists, artists, and creative thinkers) have created a 130,000 document. (Click here to go directly to the responses). John Brockman |
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The Question of 2010 On that Friday in January 2010 published by the American literary agent John Brockman, the question of 2010: How the Internet and networked computers to change the way we think? At the core of the debate lies the question asked by science historian George Dyson: "Is the price of machines that think, people who will not do?" Brockman, who counts some of the most important scientists of our time as his authors, this vision orbits on Edge.org with one hundred twenty-one answers. We print the most interesting in the features section. Unlike Germany, where the debate about the information age is still focused on palaver about media, Edge debates the target in depth. Who is planning what, where, by what means? If one takes the digital revolution seriously , one must ask to what degree the communication of the industrialized twenty-first century will change our thinking. The computer pioneer Daniel Hillis describes how even such a simple procedure such as the programming of the time on networked computers is now barely understood by many programmers. And he concludes, with regard to climate change and financial crisis: "Our machines are embodiments of our reason, and we entrust them with a large number of our decisions. In this process we have created a world that is beyond our understanding. Experts no longer talk about data, but about what computers predict with the data." Neurobiological effects of constant multitasking lead, as Nicholas Carr writes about outsourcing, for ever-increasing dependence on computers. What if not only decisions about loans and budgets were subject to the use of computers, but also those regarding resumes? After the recent incidents in America, profiling is an even more important means of web-based "pre-crime" analysis: Who is planning what, where, by what means? But profiling what works with terrorists can also be applied to in enterprises and workplaces as Cataphora.com has shown. Been overtaken by reality Some of those authors presented by Brockman do not find that the Net has changed their thinking. Others see it differently. Nobody, not even the skeptics, long to return to a time before the Internet. But many make it clear that what we experience as a user is in fact only a "surfing", a movement on the surface. The German Internet debate is stuck in the nineties. Brockman's question this year sets the chord for questions that take us beyond this set of attitudes. Frank Schirrmacher |
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PUBLICO (LISBON) — WEEKEND MAGAZINE — COVER STORY Do you think the Internet has altered you mind at the neuronal, cognitive, processing, emotional levels? Yes, no, maybe, reply philosophers, scientists, writers, journalists to the Edge annual question 2010, in dozens of texts that are published online today Click here for PDF of Portuguese Original In the summer of 2008, American writer Nicholas Carr published in the Atlantic Monthly an article under the title Is Google making us stupid?: What the Internet is doing to our brains, in which highly criticized the Internet’s effects on our intellectual capabilities. The article had a high impact, both in the media and the blogosphere. Edge.org – the intellectual online salon – has now expanded and deepened the debate through its traditional annual challenge to dozens of the world’s leading thinkers of science, technology, thought, arts, journalism. The 2010 question is: “How is the Internet changing the way you think?" They reply that the Internet has made them (us) smarter, shallower, faster, less attentive, more accelerated, less creative, more tactile, less visual, more altruistic, less arrogant. That it has dramatically expanded our memory but at the same time made us the hostages of the present tense. The global web is compared to an ecosystem, a collective brain, a universal memory, a global conscience, a total map of geography and history. One thing is certain: be they fans or critics, they all use it and they all admit that the Internet leaves no one untouched. No one can remain impervious to things such a Wikipedia or Google, no one can resist the attraction of instant, global, communication and knowledge. More than 120 scientists, physicians, engineers, authors, artists, journalists met the challenge. Here, we present the gist some of their answers, including Nicholas Carr’s, who is also part of this online think tank founded by New-York literary agent John Brockman. If you have more time and think your attention span is up to it, we recommend you enjoy the whole scope of their length and diversity by visiting edge.org. |
The online magazine Edge asked scientists, writers and artists, such as the Internet has changed their thinking. The answers are remarkable. ... Two billion people worldwide use the Internet. The debates about the new technology, however, are not the same everywhere. In Germany, for example, the discourse is limited on the subject of the net, as it is especially focused on media and copyright debates. |
Thinking in the Internet Age
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Sharon Begley Shortened attention span. Less interest in reflection and introspection. Inability to engage in in-depth thought. Fragmented, distracted thinking. The ways the Internet supposedly affects thought are as apocalyptic as they are speculative, since all the above are supported by anecdote, not empirical data. So it is refreshing to hear how 109 philosophers, neurobiologists, and other scholars answered, "How is the Internet changing the way you think?" That is the "annual question" at the online salon edge.org, where every year science impresario, author, and literary agent John Brockman poses a puzzler for his flock of scientists and other thinkers. ... |
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Articles of Note: John Brockman’s Edge question for 2010 asks over a hundred intellectuals, “Is the Internet changing the way you think?”... more» |
THE EDGE ANNUAL QUESTION BOOK SERIES "An intellectual treasure trove" |
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THE EDGE ANNUAL QUESTION BOOK SERIES "An intellectual treasure trove"
NOW IN BOOKSTORES AND ONLINE!
Contributors include: RICHARD DAWKINS on cross-species breeding; IAN McEWAN on the remote frontiers of solar energy; FREEMAN DYSON on radiotelepathy; STEVEN PINKER on the perils and potential of direct-to-consumer genomics; SAM HARRIS on mind-reading technology; NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB on the end of precise knowledge; CHRIS ANDERSON on how the Internet will revolutionize education; IRENE PEPPERBERG on unlocking the secrets of the brain; LISA RANDALL on the power of instantaneous information; BRIAN ENO on the battle between hope and fear; J. CRAIG VENTER on rewriting DNA; FRANK WILCZEK on mastering matter through quantum physics. "11 books you must read — Curl up with these reads on days when you just don't want to do anything else: 5. John Brockman's This Will Change Everything: Ideas That Will Shape the Future" (Forbes India) "Full of ideas wild (neurocosmetics, "resizing ourselves," "intuit[ing] in six dimensions") and more close-to-home ("Basketball and Science Camps," solar technology"), this volume offers dozens of ingenious ways to think about progress" (Publishers Weekly — Starred Review) "A stellar cast of intellectuals ... a stunning array of responses...Perfect for: anyone who wants to know what the big thinkers will be chewing on in 2010. " (New Scientist) "Pouring over these pages is like attending a dinner party where every guest is brilliant and captivating and only wants to speak with you—overwhelming, but an experience to savor." (Seed) |
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"With sacred values, this cost-benefit calculus is turned on its head, explains anthropologist Scott Atran of the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, who has studied Islamic terrorist groups. — Sharon Begley, Newsweek [...] Dr. Anton Zeilinger, an Austrian physicist, is becoming a rock star of science for his work in quantum teleportation, which I know very little about but which I think I may have achieved backstage one night in Berlin in the early 1990s. — OpEd "Ten for the Next Ten" By Bono New York Times [...] ...reading is a relatively recent invention, dating to some 5,000 to 10,000 years ago. Our brains didn't evolve to read. Stanislas Dehaene, a distinguished French cognitive scientist, has helped unravel that mystery. His gifts, on display in "Reading in the Brain," include an aptitude for complex experiments and an appetite for detail — Alison Gopnik, "Mind Reading", New York Times Book Review [...] It's Always the End of the World as We Know It . From today's perspective, the Y2K fiasco seemed to be less about technology than about a morbid fascination with end-of-the-world scenarios. Denis Dutton, OpEd, New York Times [...] Times to Remember, Places to Forget Daniel Gilbert, OpEd, New York Times [...] Discovering the Mathematical Laws of Nature: He is good-natured, funny and thought to be among the smartest men in physics: Frank A. Wilczek, 58, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was one of three winners of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics. Interview by Claudia Dreifus, The New York Times [...] Keep a Civil Cybertongue by Jimmy Wales and Andrea Weckerle Wall Street Journal [...] Fortunately there are a few Web sites that provide daily links to the best that is thought and said. Arts and Letters Daily [ED. NOTE: Editor, Denis Dutton] is the center of high-toned linkage on the Web. — David Brooks, OpEd Column, The New York Times [...] Judith Shulevitz on Nicholas Wade's The God Gene: Like Robert Wright in The Evolution of God, Wade wants to defend religion from so-called "new atheists" like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, who see it as a malignant illusion. New York Times Book Review [...] Fine Line Between Humans and Other Beasts. One of the show's advisers, the neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga, who was originally going to write a companion book for the PBS series ... — Elizabeth Jensen, New York Times [...] Breakthrough of the Year: an international and multidisciplinary team co-led by Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, unveiled the oldest known skeleton of a potential human ancestor as well as information about its living environment. Found in the Middle Awash in the Afar region in Ethiopia, the 4.4-million-year-old skeleton became known as Ardipithecus ramidus, or Ardi for short. — Elizabeth Pain, Science [...] 2010 preview New Scientist: Arise, Neanderthal brother —Ewen Calloway [...] Genome sequencing for all — Peter Aldhous [...] 'Synthia' Waiting for Synthia - that has been the script for enthusiasts of synthetic life for the past two years, ever since genomics pioneer Craig Venter promised to unveil a living bacterial cell carrying a genome made from scratch in the lab ... George Church of Harvard University has already announced that his team has made a self-assembling ribosome - the cellular factory responsible for making proteins.— Peter Aldhous [...] "The Darwin Show": The International Darwin Day Foundation, acting as publicist and clearing house for hundreds of the year's global events, is administered by the American Humanist Association, a secularist pressure group which defends the civil liberties of the endangered species of the American godless, and hands out annual awards to its chosen ‘Humanist of the Year' (past winners include Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, E.O. Wilson and Steven Pinker). — Steven Shapin, London Review of Books [...] Sex and shopping – it's a guy thing — Geoffrey Miller, New Scientist [...] Richard Wrangham: Cooking is what made us human — Jeremy Webb, New Scientist [...] Lawrence Krauss: A Dark Matter Breakthrough? New evidence of the invisible matter that could make up 90% of the universe. — Wall Street Journal [...] Brain Power: Studying Young Minds, and How to Teach Them — "This is what we believe focused math education does: It sharpens the firing of these quantity neurons," said Stanislas Dehaene, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Collège de France in Paris and author of the books "The Number Sense" and "Reading and the Brain." Benedict Carey, New York Times [...] Stewart Brand's Strange Trip: Whole Earth to Nuclear Power — Yale Environment 360 [...] To Deal With Obsession, Some Defriend Facebook — In her coming book, "Alone Together" (Basic Books, 2010), Sherry Turkle, a psychologist who is director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discusses teenagers who take breaks from Facebook. Katie Hafner, New York Times [...] AC Grayling: Secrets of the Universe: How We Discovered the Cosmos B&N Review [...] Hitchens vs. Wright: One Man's Meat bloggingheads.tv [...] Heaven and Nature ... Indeed, it [pantheism] represents a form of religion that even atheists can support. Richard Dawkins has called pantheism 'a sexed-up atheism.' (He means that as a compliment.) Sam Harris concluded his polemic 'The End of Faith' by rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion in 'the roiling mystery of the world.' Citing Albert Einstein's expression of religious awe at the "beauty and sublimity" of the universe, Dawkins allows, 'In this sense I too am religious'. — Ross Douthat, New York Times column [...] NPR has been reading Edge — "Welcome to 13.7, an opinion blog set at the inersection of science and culture. [...] Marcelo Gleiser: Science For A New Millennium. 13.7 billion years: the age of the universe. The time it took from the big bang to this blog.— NPR 13.7 [...] Stuart Kauffman: Entering A New Time For Our Co-Evolving Civilizations — NPR 13.7 [...] Seth Lloyd: Warp-Speed Algebra: New Algorithm Does Algebra in a Snap —
Davide Castelvecchi Scientific American [...] Hans Ulrich Obrist: The Man Who Made Curating an Art — Earlier this fall, Mr. Obrist was named the most powerful person in the art world by the British magazine ArtReview— Leon Neyfakh, The New York Observer [...] Wu Shanzhuan and Hans Ulrich Obrist — Evan Osnos, Letter From China, The New Yorker [...] Richard Dawkins Accidents of life: Darwinian theory was the best idea of all time, but why did it take so long to evolve? And what if we had 16 fingers? New Statesman [...] |
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